“Tell me,” Ellen said carefully to the man sitting next to her. “You told me that it was necessary for me to come here. But I haven’t been of much use.”
His response didn’t help to enlighten her. “What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
“What time did you hear that creature last night?”
“It was later. I don’t know.”
“She came to my office at around four,” said the sheriff.
“Then we’ll wait.”
“But what am I to do?” Ellen asked anxiously.
“You’re not to do anything,” Nataniel answered agitatedly. “Don’t you understand anything? Don’t you understand that I have to figure out whether you have a special talent that I’ve been looking ... No, forget it,” he said remorsefully. “Forgive me for being so unbalanced in my behaviour. It tends to happen when I’m dealing with complicated and difficult cases like this one.”
Ellen nodded. She was unhappy that he had become so irritated with her, but in a way she could almost understand him. And he genuinely regretted the way he had spoken.
“Riddles like this are tremendously exhausting for him,” Rikard explained in a low voice. “Once he’s figured out what it’s all about, he’ll be back to his normal self.”
“So you don’t know what this is all about?” the sheriff growled.
Nataniel seemed pale and fatigued. “No. It’s all so conflicting. This is why I need Ellen’s help.”
She recalled with concern Rikard’s account of the time the police had had a case that was full of conflicting elements, and how Nataniel had insisted that there was nothing supernatural involved in it.
He wasn’t insisting anything now.
Her lower lip was trembling. Nataniel couldn’t possibly have seen it in the darkness, but he immediately placed his hand on hers and gave it a squeeze, which helped her tremendously. She liked his hands so much. Powerful and well-formed, with a strange kind of strength. And it wasn’t just physical strength she was thinking of. They transmitted warmth and calmness and a sense of safety. She would later discover that they were able to transmit a lot more than that, but they had only just met and she didn’t know all the resources he possessed.
All she knew was that there was a primordial force in the room and that it derived from him.
Suddenly his hand resting on hers froze, and the sheriff said, “Shh!”
From the floor below they heard the sound of quiet, slow footsteps.
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